Bike to Meaford – Day 4 – Stayner to Brampton

Once again we had to ride to a restaurant for breakfast.  Most mornings our planned leave time turned out to be aspirational rather than accurately adhered to, however, this was our longest day for cycling so we pulled out all the stops and got on the road as planned.

It’s not often that within a short distance of leaving our accommodation we see a sign for Brampton.  We didn’t actually take this route, which would have been a single straight line all the way down Route 42 and Airport Road, even though it was 16km shorter than the route we followed, as it would have been more than double the climbing.

I had prepared two routes for our final day:  shorter with lots of climbing, and longer with less climbing.  We had discussed it several times and decided to decide on the final evening.  Patti was always leaning toward the longer route, David and Dayle toward the shorter one, and I was undecided.  At dinner last night no one had changed their position so we let Patti decide and she chose the longer, flatter route.  Then I said, “You can picture the hills on Airport Road north of Highway 9, right?”, while gesturing repeated steep climbs and descents.  David then interjected with his recollection of the road and explained to Dayle who exclaimed, “Oh, Hell, no” as she finally visualized what we would have been riding.  Laughs all around and satisfaction with Patti’s decision ensued.

It was a lovely misty morning, dry, with the promise of heat and the garbage bags were tucked safely away in the panniers.  We had breakfast at Coffee Culture.

There was a pretty little park in Stayner formed by some odd street angles and adjacent to the rail trail on which we travelled from Collingwood to just north of Stayner.  There was a map in town showing that it extends to Creemore, but we took the road.

Barry decided to meet us to share the road on our final day.  We joked as we packed up at the B&B that he would probably be saving a table for us at Coffee Culture when we arrived. He set out in the dark and made it to within 10km of Stayner before meeting us. And he was very fortunate to climb a lovely hill (circled in blue on the elevation profile below, along with his route to and from and Stayner circled in blue at the top) to find us at the crest before turning back south!  He managed to reach his goal of doing a 200km one day ride.

This lovely scene required a stop to capture.

Just after the turn, we encountered a photographer with a DSLR with a huge telephoto lens, who pointed out a bald eagle nest and eagles to us. My picture is extremely zoomed in, with a point and shoot camera, so not very good, but gives an idea of the size of the bird.  Shortly thereafter we encounter two snow geese flying cross wise over us.  They were beautiful and enormous, but too fast to capture.

We are ready to go after lunch in Alliston.

We are still smiling at Tim’s in Tottenham where we got on the the Caledon Trailway.

We took one final group shot, back in Brampton, before separating to head to our respective homes.

Patti came back to my house where her husband picked her up for a well deserved rest.  She did an amazing job on her first multi-day trip.

At the end of my fourth multi-day cycling trip I reflect on what an amazing way it is to travel and am incredibly thankful to share the road with friends old and new.